Novelist Dawn Powell's 43 diaries up for sale

The complete diaries of Dawn Powell, the Ohioan-turned-New-Yorker whose literary reputation has burnished since her 1965 death, are up for sale.

The author of "My Home is Far Away" and "The Wicked Pavilion" kept a diary from 1915-1965 that grew to 43 volumes. They amount to "50 years through the eyes of a woman now recognized as one of our greatest writers," said critic Tim Page, the seller, in a telephone interview.

Page was instrumental to the Powell revival during the 1990s, when her out-of-print novels, short stories, letters and plays were re-published to acclaim. Gore Vidal was another champion. Powell's characters often had Ohio roots, and her stories frequently featured individuals who, like the writer, made an adult life in Manhattan.

Her 1942 novel "A Time to Be Born" was an unflattering look at hackneyed ambition based on the lives of Clare Boothe Luce and Henry Luce.

"In her novels, Powell is cold-eyed and confident; in her diaries, the mask sometimes slips, and she reveals the debilitating effects of writing brilliantly and selling poorly," Terry Teachout observed in 1995 in the New York Times.

Powell was born in 1896 in Mt. Gilead, Ohio; seven years later her mother died. In 1910, her stepmother burned some of Dawn's notebooks, and the girl ran away to live with a maternal aunt in Shelby, Ohio. The aunt encouraged Dawn's writing and helped support her as she earned a degree at Lake Erie College. Powell arrived in New York in 1918.

"Never give a guest Dexedrine after sundown," is an oft-cited line from her diaries.

Page happened upon Powell's work by accident -- his interest sparked by an Edmund Wilson piece he read on a plane. During a stopover in Cleveland to report for Newsday on the Cleveland Orchestra, Page followed his curiosity, took a bus to Mansfield and met Powell's younger cousin, John "Jack" Sherman. The men became close friends and eventually hired a lawyer to liberate Powell's papers from her executor.

View full sizeThe Library of America published this four-novel volume in 2001

"I ended up editing her diaries, letters, short stories, plays and writing introductions to a lot of her novels," said Page, who has a Pulitzer Prize for his Washington Post criticism. "Basically, from 1991-2001, Dawn Powell occupied me pretty intensely."

Page, 57, said he bought "her entire papers for about the price of an automobile" in 1993 or 1994. He donated a good portion to the Columbia University Library, but he finds now that he needs to sell the diaries.

Bidding begins at $500,000 and will close July 15. More information is available at dawnpowelldiaries.com.

Page said he has the blessing of the Powell family and won't sell the collection piecemeal. He requires the new owner to submit "a specific plan for making copies of the material permanently available to the public, at Columbia or elsewhere."

In 1998, Henry Holt published Page's biography, "Dawn Powell."

"She was a self-made person whose writing just reads so wonderfully today," Page said. "You know how they say a biographer eventually hates his subject? Well, I'm still very fond of her to this day."